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Everything posted by Dean

The cost of the forum software itself is actually only $25 every 6 months, so $50 per year. This covers all updates and some in-built spam filtering, the forums will continue to function without these features however from a security perspective it's pretty important we keep everything up to date. The biggest cost comes from hosting the server itself, we get quite a lot of traffic per day and the forums simply wouldn't function properly on a shared web hosting package like you can pick up for $100 a year from various web hosts.

Hey folks.
I saw someone mention the other day that the 'Display Name History' feature hasn't been working, I've fixed that up today.
For those who aren't sure how it works, if you go to a members profile next to their name up the top you will see an icon that will show you all changes to that members display name. Helps if you don't recognise someone!

I know it’s not supposed to show up if the display name for a user has never been changed, are you guys definitely looking at someone who’s changed their name?
if so that’s a bit weird, I’ll look in to it.

Hi all,
I've applied the latest update to the forum software, as it's important I keep it up to date so any security issues are patched out. It looks like in this recent update they've done a bit of a redesign of the default theme, so you will probably notice things look just a little bit different, however everything should be in the same place.
I'll admit I'm not the biggest fan of the new look, mostly because a lot of the blue highlights have been removed so it's very monotone other than the header right up the top. I have a certain level of control over the colours throughout the forums so I might have a look at it when I get the chance and see if I can make it look a little more like it used to.
If you notice any problems since this update please let me know.

As far as I can tell Tapatalk is the only way. It is the most highly requested thing about this software and I can see that somebody is working on a potential solution (can't really tell how it will work) so hopefully in future there's a better way. I know Tapatalk is a bit temperamental but it should definitely still be sending push notifications, it's not something that's been removed. If it's not working maybe try reinstalling the app and check your push notification settings.

No worries dudes!
I guess that was part of the reason we built in the "Real Name" option which most people have gotten on board with. Theoretically we could add a 'Nickname' field in a similar fashion but that means everyone has 3 different name fields which is a bit excessive.

No offense taken at all, you're 100% correct. I'm obviously happy to throw in my opinion (as I have) to try and come to a reasonable solution but at the end of the day I am primarily an admin for the technical administrative functions of keeping the boards running properly.
From a technical perspective we unfortunately can't differentiate between the ability to delete single posts and deleting entire threads - It's all or none. I personally believe that the fairest solution is to leave the current ability to delete content in place as we do have the ability to recover any post/thread within 30 days if somebody raises a legitimate concern with any deletions. I'm definitely not trying to take any sides here or step on anyone's toes, I'm simply using my experience in IT and web security/privacy to construct my views on how this should all be dealt with.
If the majority view is overwhelmingly in another direction and Aria is happy with it then it is definitely possible for me to prevent the deletion of content, but I think a logical and unbiased discussion needs to be had both with all of you guys and internally with the other admins. I know this is "just a Blink-182 message board" but when we're talking about peoples privacy that doesn't really matter. One of the best parts about these boards has always been the fact that people have real discussions outside of Blink-182 related topics, and often these can get very personal so we need to deal with privacy with a certain level of seriousness.
@Aria - Would really love your input here, if you'd prefer to discuss privately hit me up through PM/Facebook.

I hear you, and that's a fair comment.
From a technical standpoint this gets a bit tricky, the way threads work are that the thread itself is very much tied to the initial post - In fact the initial post basically is the thread so if you started a thread and want to remove the post you made to start the thread unfortunately the entire thread must go with it.
This, I suppose, is one of the reasons deleted content will go in to the Moderator control panel so in an event like this a mod or admin can review it if somebody raises a concern with a deleted thread. This would obviously need to involve a conversation with the person who created the thread and if its deemed that they simply need their post(s) removed from the thread we can recover the thread but manually remove the content from their posts. If you consider something like Facebook, if I were to make a post on Facebook and then a bunch of people made their own comments on that post I can still delete the original post and all comments will be removed with it.
As I said though, this is only possible within 30 days of the thread being deleted so if it's gone past this time there's no way to recover it as it's been hard-deleted from the database.

Deleted threads/Posts are visible for up to 30 days in the Moderator Control panel (accessible by both admins and mods for the relevant sections), after this time they are deleted permanently and can not be recovered.
I don't want to prevent people from being able to delete their own content, they have a right to do so. You can delete any post you make on Facebook, Twitter etc. and I see no reason why it should be any different here. If somebody needs something they posted removed for any reason they are free to delete it so it is instantly wiped from public view. Consider somebody who has a job interview coming up and finds they have some personal information available on here that they decide is best for the interviewer not to find, they should be able to remove it from public view without having to run it past an admin/mod first. As I said above, any deleted content will be recoverable by an admin/mod within 30 days of it's deletion, so if anything is accidentally deleted or an admin/mod has a logical reason to recover the content it can be restored (mods, please be respectful of peoples privacy above your own personal feelings towards them - don't abuse this system).
I understand that a lot of what makes the wheels go round on these boards are the beefs people have with each other, and without you giving me any more context for your question(s) I imagine I'm probably right in assuming that's got something to do with what's going on here. Above all else though I respect peoples right to their own privacy both online and offline, and I think we need to consider that when dealing with this stuff.
If you disagree or want to propose any changes to the way the system works in this regard, by all means let me know your thoughts and I'll hear you out. I'm not the only one making these calls so if there's something that needs to be discussed internally I'll make sure that happens.

Thanks Speedo.
I really can't get anything like this to show up anywhere, I've gone through all the code and specifically the ads, nothing at all.
I've done some reading online specifically related to the popup you posted an example of, and all signs point to it being an app on Android that contains malicious code which hijacks your web browser and displays ads at random. Having said that, I'd expect it to occur on any website and not just this one. Are you seeing these ads pop up on other websites too?
I'd really love to say there's something I can do about this but unfortunately it really doesn't look like it has anything to do with the boards at all, everything here seems to check out 100%.

Really weird, I've spent a bit of time lately browsing through the forums on Chrome and Safari on my iPhone and haven't had a single popup appear. There certainly shouldn't be any pop up ads at all, the only ad provider we use is Google and they never use pop-ups. What devices/browsers are you folks using who are getting these ads? Would be interested to know if you are still getting them when you try an alternative browser.

I browsed around for a while on mobile and didn't get any pop-up ads, not sure where they would be coming from... Only ads we have are the google ones that sit on the page, and they can't have pop-ups.
Interested to hear if anyone else is seeing them?

Good idea for a thread!
Last band I saw was Haken a week or so ago - Absolutely mind-bending. I've been to more shows than I can count over the last year or two and this was up there with the best.
Can't find a decent live clip, but this song is genius:

@...Dan... Even though I don't post much these days I still drop in from time to time to see what everyone's up to. I've met a lot of cool people here and have a lot of memories from over the years so I guess it's just me wanting to give back a little more than anything.
That said, I do wish I came on and posted more. I used to sit on here all the time a couple of years ago and get involved in everything that was going on and I do miss that. My life has just gotten a bit hectic over the last year or two with work, music projects and travel back and forth to see the missus but I'm moving cities soon and I should get some more free time as a result so hopefully I can make a point of getting more involved again.

I've managed to replicate the issue on Android, looks to be browser specific. Doesn't happen with other Android browsers and works fine in Chrome on iOS. I'll send the details to the guys who build the board software and see if they can figure it out and chuck a patch in the next version.
Will check out Tapatalk soon.

I’ll check Tapatalk out for you once I’m back at home I’ll do some more testing with the mobile version, but I’ve just tried deleting a quote while typing and simply using backspace seems to work just fine for me. Tested on Chrome and Safari with iOS, what browser are you using?